


Traitor's End

by Romanumeternal



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:13:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romanumeternal/pseuds/Romanumeternal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He betrayed them all; and as the Eyes close in, he shows he had good reason too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traitor's End

"I thought I might find you here" I said, quietly.

 

He smiled, a tired, worn expression. His face had been handsome, but was now a mask of exhaustion and stress. Several weeks worth of stubble covered his face; deep bags lay beneath his eyes, and his once fine clothes were now rags. Scarlet had faded to a dull pink, bottle green to a greyish lime.

 

"I assumed you would" he said, shrugging. He glanced around the room - an old, decrepit kitchen. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls; grime and dust covering every surface. "I knew you'd identify this safehouse eventually. I didn't expect you yourself to come for me."

 

Now it was my turn to shrug. "I guess I wanted to be the one who spoke with the greatest traitor in a generation."

 

This time, the grin was more genuine. "I revel in that title. Although I believe those in Freisreich may call me something different."

 

I nodded, thoughtfully. "That they might." Without a doubt they would. Without him, their war machine might well have collapsed entirely by now. Our sources told us that their press had made him into a titan of heroism, a handsome trickster, a slave who had courageously struck back at his masters a thousand-fold. From one perspective, all that was true, of course.

 

He sipped, slowly, from a chipped mug full of brackish looking water. He grimaced slightly at the taste, and then put it back on the table, and closed his eyes for a moment. There was silence for a few moments.

 

"I didn't expect it to end this way" he said, at length. "I always imagined you'd come for me in the middle of the night, or grab me off the street when I wasn't looking. I imagined torture, interrogation and then a public execution via crucifixion."

 

"You never contemplated escaping to Freisreich?"

 

He rolled his eyes.

 

"As if I'd get there. I'd be arrested long before I made it over the front lines, and I have no intention of seeing if the rumours about your interrogation techniques are true." He paused, and then chuckled slightly. "By the by, don't try and take me alive. I have a small bomb in my pocket. Hardly any explosive, but there's enough. Enough to blow a hole in my torso."

 

I winced. I had hoped to take him alive. The information he would have given...it might almost come close to undoing a fraction of the damage he'd done.

 

"In the spirit of fairness, then, I should probably tell you there is a sniper trained on you. In case you decide to try and take out the head of the Eyes before you die."

 

He leaned back in the rickety chair. "I assumed you did. Frankly, I'm ready for the bullet. And, loath as I am to insult you, but I have already served the cause of liberty and equality enough. It is thanks to me that your Northern fleet was sunk, that Freisreich knows how to construct a sunbomb, that your chemical warfare program was sabotaged. Heh, thanks to me they almost managed to get the Tyrant himself."

 

"Thankfully, the Leader is sensible enough to alter his flight plans at the last moment" I said, casually. In truth, though, that had been a horribly close call. If the Leader hadn't had some undercooked chicken the night before, in all likelihood the Republic's leadership would have been decapitated by a single bomb. It had been the man in front of me who had leaked the details of the Leader's movements and security to Freisreich.

 

"Still" he said, and raised his mug in a mock-toast "I did pretty well. Your Republic won't enslave the whole world for at least another few years, thanks to me."

 

"You won't goad me, Varro."

 

He shrugged. "I do not intend to. You know as well as I do that Rome is built on nothing more than slavery, tyranny and conquest. I simply struck a blow, on behalf of all those who cannot." He took another sip. "I feel that if I could sway the head of the Eyes with words alone, there would not have been any point in espionage."

 

I said nothing for a few seconds, watching the man in front of me. Really, I knew I was taking a terrible risk. I did not believe for a second his protestations that he had no interest in killing me - he knew he was dead meat anyway. Really, the sensible thing to do would have been either to try and take him alive as he slept, or have the sniper put a round through his skull. Why a man of my position was talking to him, I honestly did not know. Perhaps it was just professional curiosity.

 

"Did you intend to have your Master executed?"

 

He chuckled. "No, that was a lucky chance. It is true what you Eyes say, is it not? 'No one is innocent'. How long did it take you to realise that it was the slave and not the master who was the traitor?"

 

I frowned. "Long enough, and there wasn't much left of him by the time we accepted his protestations were true. Everyone protests their innocence, no matter how glaring the guilt. He was the only man we identified who had the means to get all that information. Hades, he even passed on the fake documents we gave him to Freisreich. We thought that was proof enough. We never suspected..."

 

"No, your entire worldview, Tribune, is based around the idea that slaves do not have emotions or feelings or dreams. If they did, you would not be able to stomach what you do on a daily basis."

 

I laughed, a harsh bark of disdain. "I do the same to citizens. Frankly, I have the stomach for anything, if it keeps Rome safe."

 

He frowned. "You are the exception, then. Most Romans do not consider slaves people at all. That was what hampered your investigation. I guess even Bilbao took a while to finger his boy toy as the culprit."

 

"He never did" I said. "You should have seen him when he heard that theory. He was so upset, at the betrayal he seemed to think you loved him". The traitor opposite snorted in amusement, shaking his head at the Senator's delusion. "And the fact he was going to be shot for incompetence, of course. But I honestly think he did not consider you capable of such an act. Stealing all those papers from under his nose."

 

"You know, for twenty two years I hated the fact that I was nothing but a tool to him" he said, softly. "I hated that he saw me as nothing more than an aid to sexual pleasure. Worked in my favour in the end, of course." His lip curled in contempt. "I'm guessing he died as he had lived."

 

I hesitated, but only for a moment. I had a lot of respect - professional admiration, mostly - for this man, who had outwitted the Eyes for five years and, some would say, saved Freisreich from utter defeat - at least for the moment. "As a fat, stupid man, hopelessly out of his depth" I said coldly. I had no respect for Bilbao, despite him being a Senator and an ex-Praetor. He damn well should have noticed that his slaveboy was stealing confidential information. Not to mention that there was something sickening about a man who kept his own catamite when the Republic was crying out for more manpower in the factories and farms whilst citizens were away, dying on the battlefield. "He blubbered and sobbed all the way to his execution."

 

"Good" he said. "I like to know that. I hated him - hated him as I've never hated anyone before, or since. And to think he thought I loved him" He looked straight at me, his lip curling. "I hate you as an agent of Rome, of course, but personally - I daresay you're a decent person, in a rotten system. And your competence was frightening. It was only luck that I escaped the initial round up, if I'm honest."

 

I smiled at the compliment . Would all of the traitors I'd interrogated and arrested and executed over the years say the same? Would Senator Bilbao, sobbing and weeping in his own filth, still pleading even when gagged as I raised the pistol to his bald head? Would the hundreds who had seen their friends and family disappear? Would the long, long list of people I'd hurt and killed, all in the service of the Republic, say the same?

 

Would Hanna, a treacherous voice whispered in my ear. Would the slavegirl I'd betrayed all those years ago, really think that - I shut that thought down quickly. The past is in the past, and I keep mine locked for a reason.

 

"Thanks" I said quietly.

 

"No problem" said the slave. He sipped from his mug again, and looked outside the window, coated in filth.

 

"Trying to spot the sniper?" I asked, casually. My hand reached down, caressing the handle of the pistol.

 

"You know" he said, idly "the one thing I have right now, is control, for perhaps the first time in my life? Oh, true, I am doomed to die - but I can choose where, when and how?"  
I raised an eyebrow. "Come now. Come with me, and you don't even have to die."

 

"You expect me to believe that? Have some respect for me, Tribune. You'd torture and then kill me. Don't let us pretend otherwise."

 

I opened my mouth, but said nothing. He was right, of course. Traitors such as he could not be allowed to live; infecting the Republic with treason and disunity. And a rebellious slave, as well...

 

He smiled.

 

"Of course you won't. Which is why" he grinned, one hand dropping into his left pocket -

 

-alarmed, I backed against the door, raising my pistol -

 

\- his hand clutched something hard, hidden by the fabric -

 

\- I shouted in alarm, throwing myself back through the door -

 

\- there was a loud, yet curiously flat and wet, bang, and the stench of cordite and blood.

 

I struggled to my feet, relieved I was still alive, blinking the dust out of my eyes, coughing and gagging. I looked at where Varro had been sitting, and then wished I hadn't. He was lying on the floor, blood and offal oozing out of a large hole in his torso. He was utterly still, and, as I approached closer, I noticed his head was still intact.

 

He was still smiling.


End file.
